The Outcast

after Borges

Was that a garden there? Was it a dream?
I can’t be sure. Awakening in haze,
I think of Eden as a passing phase,
A faded memory that’s come to seem
The sleight of hand of a Grand Illusionist
Who snatched it from a hat. Yet imprecise
As those occluded sights of paradise
Have now become, I sense they still exist
Outside of me. The unyielding earth’s
Spun round from a blessing to a curse;
It’s time that Cain and Abel had their say.
Nevertheless, it’s something to have loved,
To once have been so happy, to have moved
Within that garden, even for a day.
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